Are you in a writing rut? No matter how long you’ve been a writer, it can be challenging to stick to a realistic writing rhythm. Our needs, responsibilities, and demands on our schedules evolve over time. It’s easy to forget that our writing commitments need to shift with them. 

If you’ve experienced a change in your life or you’re looking to develop a more consistent writing schedule, it might be time to reevaluate your current process. Keep reading for four tips to help you create a realistic rhythm for your writing life.

Assess your season of life.

Assessing your life is the first step before you can dive into the details of developing your rhythm. If you haven’t taken the time to evaluate your current season of life, the other steps will not be as helpful. Consider what responsibilities you have right now and how those responsibilities impact your time and creative energy. Are you a caretaker of small children or an elderly relative? Do...

Many of us romanticize summer as a time for carefree relaxation, novels read poolside, and backyard barbecues. All these things may happen, but the reality is, most of us continue to work regular hours throughout the summer, fitting fun into the margins on our calendars.

In summer, our everyday work life can feel the squeeze as responsibilities expand. Children may be home from school, schedules quickly fill up with get-togethers, and perhaps we’ve planned a week or two of vacation. 

For writers, frustration can build up when our regular rhythm of work is no longer possible. If you have a primary job, writing time is often the first thing to go. If you write for a living, summer can cause serious stress to your regular writing schedule.

At hope*writers, we believe everything is figureoutable — even your summer writing routine. The following three tips will help you create a flexible plan to make progress on your writing this summer. 

1. Get clear on the...

Vague writing rarely lingers in the mind of a reader. Have you ever read a description, an image, or a phrase that stayed with you long after you finished a book? Those words likely remained with you because they were detailed and specific.

Specificity is an often-overlooked quality that makes for excellent writing. This is great if you pay close attention to life around you and can recall it easily. But in the age of information overload, social media, and endless distractions, it can be a real challenge to remember our ideas and capture the details that accompany them.

How do we write in vivid detail when so many of us, regardless of genre, draw from experience and memory? This one simple practice can help: Write down details from your life experience every day.

What To Write

This practice isn’t necessarily for your latest writing project. It’s not for your to-do list, for tracking submissions, or to brainstorm new ideas. Instead, set aside this time to write...

Allison Fallon, author and writing coach, believes a daily practice of writing is beneficial for everyone, whether or not they consider themselves a writer.

“Writing is not an elite activity. Writing is communication and self-discovery, writing is spirituality, writing is curiosity, writing is exploration. Writing is a human instinct.” — Allison Fallon

Based on her experience working with writers, Allison offers a tried-and-true method for developing a daily writing habit. It applies to those of us in the early stages of exploration as well as seasoned writers who struggle with creating and clarifying content. 

Allison sat down with hope*writers to share her thoughts on writing, plus her favorite prompt to help writers get writing on a regular basis. 

Who Should Write Daily

Research shows that all of us can benefit from a daily writing practice, whether or not we call ourselves writers. Writing regularly for twenty minutes a day has been...

A common lament among writers is how difficult it can be to maintain a regular rhythm of writing. For many of us, our attention is pulled in multiple directions with various commitments to our day jobs, families, marketing tasks, or community responsibilities. These are often good and necessary diversions from our writing work; however, if we want to make progress as a writer, we need to develop and stick to a plan.

The key to finishing your work is simple, but it’s not easy. Hope*writers asked children’s author S. D. Smith how he commits to deep work.

He encourages writers to “stop not writing” and offers the following tips on how you can commit to your own rhythm of writing.

Recognize Your Limits

We are finite, and so are the hours in our day. Our energy and focus are limited, and no two writers have the same inner or outer resources. By recognizing our personal limitations as well as our strengths, we’re able to make informed decisions about...